Notes from the Underdog

The Book

HAUNTED! By endless tiny humiliations.

STRUGGLING! To resurrect the corpse of his literary career.

ENSNARED! In a loving yet perplexing marriage.

Anthony McGowan is a man at odds with the universe. Stumbling from one improbable fiasco to the next, he patrols the mean streets of West Hampstead like some unholy cross between Columbo, J. Alfred Prufrock and a common tramp, pondering the very stuff of life itself. For McGowan that's holed socks, unsatisfactory packed lunches, broken washing machines, Kierkegaard, the eccentricities of the British Library, liver salts, Morrissey and disapproving ladies on trains… Relentlessly honest, exquisitely funny, The Art of Failing is a paean to the glory and desperation of everyday existence.

Additional Information

Subject

Humour

Pages

288

Imprint

Oneworld

About the Author

Anthony McGowan worked as a nightclub bouncer, civil servant and Open University tutor before he became an award-winning YA author. His The Knife that Killed Me became a film in 2013. He lives in Camden, north-west London, with his wife and two children.

Reviews

‘He fails spectacularly successfully it has to be said. If cringe-worthy embarrassment were a superpower, Anthony would be an Avenger. It is Pepys' diary if Pepys were a middle-aged, 21st-century Smiths fan with athlete's foot. You'll laugh and feel mild pity.'

- Matt Haig

'There is no sharper, funnier, cleverer writer in Britain today than Anthony McGowan.'

- Robert Twigger, author of Micromastery

‘Humorously chronicles the quotidian frustrations, discomforts, and outright failures…faced over the course of one year… McGowan always brings a quirky and refreshing perspective… Entertaining.'